The Sony plant, located near the California border in Tijuana, Mexico, currently produces most of the LCD Bravia TVs sold to American consumers, and it will continue to do so through an outsourcing arrangement once the transfer is finalized. The deal is pending approval from regulatory agencies in several countries.

Sony will keep a 10% stake in the factory, and none of the factory's 3,300 employees will lose their jobs. The company has not announced pricing.

Sony said in a statement that the deal allows it to focus on research and development while outsourcing production of some of its products in order to cut costs.

Sony has faced hard times since the global recession started. In February, CEO
Howard
Stringer
Howard Stringer
took over control of Sony's struggling electronics division, which makes PlayStation games, Bravia televisions and other popular consumer goods.

The Tokyo-based manufacturer has already trimmed its payroll by 16,000, including 8,000 from the electronics division, and closed down eight factories worldwide. In April, after posting a first-quarter loss, Sony said it would cut an additional 2,000 jobs.

Sony's profits have plunged, and its export-based business has been particularly hard hit by a stronger yen. In 2009, Sony saw its first loss since it became publicly traded over 50 years ago, and it is heading for another one this fiscal year.

Shares saw a slight gain of 0.2%, to 2,530 yen ($27.09), in midday trading on the Tokyo Stock Exchange. In trading Monday on the New York Stock Exchange, Sony's shares closed at $26.74, down 2.1%.

In a statement, Sony said it does not expect the transfer of the Tijuana plant to affect its balance sheet.

Hon Hai, whose Hong-Kong-listed subsidiary is called FoxConn, has also struggled in the past year. Foxconn's revenue in 2008 dropped 15.4% to $9.3 billion from the previous year, while net profit declined even more drastically, by 83%, to $197 million.

The Taipei-based firm, however, reported a profit on Monday for the first time in five quarters. In morning trading Tuesday on the Taipei exchange, shares climbed 6.8% to 118.50 new Taiwan dollars ($3.60).

Run by CEO Terry Gou, a 58-year-old Taiwanese tycoon who ranks No. 334 on Forbes' list of the world's billionaires, FoxConn attracted some negative attention this summer after a young Chinese engineer at the company committed suicide by jumping off his Shenzhen office building. He had been held responsible for a fourth-generation iPhone prototype that had gone missing.

Gou, whose net worth was $3.3 billion in July, has apparently put his plans to retire on hold in order to guide his company through the downturn. Hon Hai's stock has tumbled by more than half in past year because of increasing labor costs in China and worries about a slowdown in demand for some of the devices it makes. It has looked to slash expenses by shifting some production to Vietnam, and it is reported to have laid off 100,000 of its 750,000 workers.